In the last post, we linked to Fast Company’s Danielle Sacks’ piece on third wave coffee producers. Food Republic asks her about her experience researching that article, whether her drinking tastes have changed, and how she believes Starbucks will respond to this bit of competition.

As I write in the story, Starbucks doesn’t like anybody infringing on its turf. They want it both ways — they’ll do as little as possible to gain street cred in the third wave coffee community, but they still want to appeal to the masses, which is the much bigger market. On one hand Starbucks is increasingly pushing its single origin “Reserve” line (brewed on Clover single cup precision brewers), yet its investments and acquisitions of late feel like a coffee company that’s leaning more towards fast food (fizzy drinks, drive-thrus). At the end of the day, if they felt like third wave was a gnat worth swatting, they could just purchase Stumptown or Blue Bottle, both of which have investors that will want to monetize their investment at some point. It’ll be interesting to see which of these players might end up part of the big green giant.